HOWTO... Change your default font on PCS, phones, tablets & more
What you need: Computer, phone, tablet or ebook-reader Time required: One hour
From the classic Times New Roman (popular with the publishing industry) to the sans serif varieties (which ditch extended strokes at the end of characters and is favoured by most websites), everyone has their favourite fonts. Although there isn’t much you can do about fonts on printed pages, you have more control with digital media. Here, we explain how to ditch the defaults and set your favourite font on your computer, phone, tablet, ebook reader and more.
Windows
Changing the size of text in Windows is easy enough - open Settings (press the Windows key+i), select Personalisation, ‘Ease of Access’, then Display and drag the ‘Make text bigger’ slider left or right.
However, Windows doesn’t include an option to change the font itself. Since the launch of Vista, it has used the Segoe UI font as its default (and this will continue in Windows 11). If you do want to give Windows a new look, there is a way around Microsoft’s restrictions.
First, download Winaero Tweaker from www.snipca.com/38881 (version 1.20.1 was released in June and supports the Windows 11 preview). Extract the contents of the ZIP file to a folder on your PC, then run the EXE file
With Winaero Tweaker open, scroll down the left-hand pane to the Advanced Appearance Settings menu, then select System Font. On the right, select ‘Use the following font’, then click ‘Change system font…’ (see screenshot above right), choose a font from the list then click OK. The new font will take effect when you restart your computer. If you later decide you want to restore the default Windows font, return to the System Font page and select ‘Use system default’.
Depending on your choice of font, it may cause the clock in your system tray to display a box instead of a colon between hours and minutes ( 1 in our screenshot above right) – this happened when we selected MV Boli as the default font. If this happens with your chosen font, there is a workaround.
Open Control Panel (search for it in the Start menu), then select Region (select ‘View by large icons’ in the top-right corner of the Control Panel window if you can’t see this option). In the window that opens, select ‘Additional settings…’, then the Time tab. Next, in the ‘Short time’ box, replace the colon with a character such as a dash or dot (as in our example 2 ), then click OK. The system
tray clock should now display correctly.
The good news is that Microsoft appears to have sorted this problem with Windows 11 - we used Winaero Tweaker to test several fonts in the preview of Windows 11, and none caused an error with the clock.
Android phones and tablets
Depending on the make and model of your Android phone or tablet, you may be able to change its system font – the one it uses in menus and apps (although not all websites, as we’ll explain later).
To check, go to Settings, Display then look for a font-related option. On our Samsung Galaxy S20 phone, we selected the ‘Font size and style’ option, then ‘Font style’ (see screenshot below). From here, we can see all currently installed fonts (the Samsung S20 only has three: Default, Samsungone and Gothic Bold). There's also a ‘Download fonts’ option, which lets you search for and install fonts from the Galaxy Store (Samsung’s version of the Google Play Store).
If your phone doesn’t have an option to change the system font, you can try installing a new launcher (software that runs your phone or tablet’s home screen). This lets you adjust the font on your phone’s home screen and in its settings interface.
Our favourite is Niagara Launcher ( www.snipca.com/38891) - you’ll need the Pro version (£4.49 per year or a oneoff payment of £11.99) to select a different font. Once installed, tap the circle at the bottom of the menu on the right, followed by ‘Niagara settings’, then Look followed by Font. Next, tap ‘Add your own font’, then select your font file (if you haven’t got any saved, read the box opposite for instructions on downloading them). If you decide you want to return to your old launcher, go to Settings, Apps, ‘Default apps’ and select it from there.
iphones and ipads
With IOS 13, which launched in 2019, Apple finally allowed you to download custom fonts on iphones and ipads. However, you can use these fonts with only a small selection of Apple’s own apps – such as Apple’s Mail and Pages (a basic word processor) – and only when creating new emails or documents. It’s a start, but we hope Apple will see sense and give us more control over fonts in future.
The best app for adding fonts to your iphone or ipad is Adobe Creative Cloud ( www.snipca.com/38882). Once you’ve registered for a free account, you get access to plenty of fonts. Open the app, select the Fonts option at the bottom, then tap Install on any you like. You can then browse all your installed fonts by going to Settings on your iphone or ipad, then selecting General, followed by Fonts (to uninstall a font, select it, then tap Remove).
Once you’ve installed new fonts, you can set them as the default in any supported apps. In the Mail app, open a new email, tap the body section, then the ‘<’ button. Next, tap ‘Aa’, select Default, then choose the font you want to use for new emails. In the Pages app, tap the More button (three dots), Settings, then ‘Font for New Documents’.
Ebook readers
Amazon’s Kindle ebook readers come with a selection of fonts. To view them, open a book on your device, then tap the top of the screen to display the menu options. Next, tap the ‘Aa’ button, select the Font tab, then tap ‘Font family’ and choose from the list of nine fonts (see screenshot above right).
You can add to these by copying fonts from your computer. First, open File Explorer (press the Windows key+e), then navigate to C:\windows\fonts. Each
Office programs
In April, Microsoft announced it was considering one of five new fonts to replace Calibri as the default in
Microsoft Office (see its blog post at www.snipca.com/38883). You don’t have to wait for Microsoft to make up its mind, however.
To change the default font in Word, open a new document, then press Ctrl+d to open the Font box. Here, choose your new default font (including its size and style). Microsoft 365 subscribers will
be using the latest version of Word, and can already use the new fonts Microsoft is reviewing as replacements for Calibri (Bierstadt, Grandview, Seaford, Skeena, and Tenorite), but don’t worry if you’re using an older version of Word - you’ll still have plenty of fonts to choose from, and you can download many more (see box above right). Once you’ve chosen your font, click Set As Default at the bottom and select ‘All documents…’ (see screenshot above).
Switching default fonts is slightly different in Excel. Click File, Options, then select General. Locate the ‘When creating new workbooks’ section on the right-hand side of the window, then choose your font in the ‘Use this as the default font’ dropdown menu.
To change the default font in Libreoffice
Writer, open a new document, then click Tools, Options (or press Alt+f12). In the window that opens, expand the Libreoffice Writer section on the left, then select ‘Basic Fonts (Western)’.
To change the default font for body text, click the dropdown menu next to Default, then choose a font. The box to the right of this lets you set the default size for that font. You can then assign different fonts to other page elements, including headings, lists and captions. Click OK to save your changes, or Default to get everything back how it was.
You can also change the default font in
Notepad. Open the Format menu then select ‘Font…’ and change the settings accordingly. You can now exit Notepad and your font settings will remain the next time you load it (even if you restart your computer).
Browsers
Most websites tell your browser which font to use. For those that don’t (including Wikipedia), your browser will use its default font. Whichever browser you’re using, you can change this default font by going to the Settings page, searching for fonts, then selecting ‘Customise fonts’ (or similar). On other websites, you may still be able to use your chosen font by viewing a site in your browser’s reader mode, which removes adverts, pop-ups and other distractions.
In Chrome, you first need to enable its reader mode (see how on page 52), then click the page icon in the address bar (see 1 in our screenshot left). Chrome will now display the page using the font as specified in the settings – click the ‘A’ button 2 to select the one you want to use 3 .
Edge’s reader mode (Immersive Reader) doesn’t currently let you change fonts, but it will soon. The Canary release (which Microsoft uses to test new features – get it from www.snipca.com/38886) lets you select from three fonts in reader mode – Calibri, Stika and Comic Sans – but not choose from other fonts on your PC. We expect this to appear in the main version of Edge in the coming months.